<?php
/**
 * <https://y.st./>
 * Copyright © 2017 Alex Yst <mailto:copyright@y.st>
 * 
 * This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
 * it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
 * the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
 * (at your option) any later version.
 * 
 * This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
 * but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
 * MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
 * GNU General Public License for more details.
 * 
 * You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
 * along with this program. If not, see <https://www.gnu.org./licenses/>.
**/

$xhtml = array(
	'title' => 'If only they&apos;d accepted my offer sooner ...',
	'body' => <<<END
<img src="/img/CC_BY-SA_4.0/y.st./weblog/2017/02/07.jpg" alt="Losing Salt and Linda Lovelace For President" class="weblog-header-image" width="800" height="480" />
<section id="advertisements">
	<h2>Unsponsored advertisements</h2>
	<p>
		<a href="https://marcwithac.bandcamp.com/album/linda-lovelace-for-president">Linda Lovelace For President</a> and <a href="https://marcwithac.bandcamp.com/album/losing-salt">Losing Salt</a> arrived today!
		Well, they actually arrived yesterday, but I wasn&apos;t home.
		They came with a couple more Marc With a C stickers, too!
		At some point, I&apos;d like to get some frames to start hanging my Marc With a C albums in.
		Losing Salt especially would make some good art to hang on my wall, as it always makes me smile when I see that line drawing of a heart in a jar.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="general">
	<h2>General news</h2>
	<p>
		I always underestimate how much of a pain it will be to haul my laundry home.
	</p>
	<p>
		Once I started my laundry, one of the first things that I did was write up part of an essay on why I call my system Linux, the common name used by everyone.
		It&apos;ll save time to be able to cite that instead of reexplaining my reasons every time that someone in the $a[GNU] crowd is trying to get me to mention $a[GNU] as well.
	</p>
	<p>
		While my clothing was drying, I checked the mailbox again for today&apos;s mail, and received the power bill that I&apos;ll need to pay.
		The utility board also sent me a pamphlet explaining why I should clean up my pet&apos;s feces instead of just leaving them everywhere.
		I don&apos;t have a pet, but I do agree that pet owners shouldn&apos;t leave pet feces where others have to deal with it.
	</p>
	<p>
		I headed back to my mother&apos;s place to grab my paycheck and $a[ID], then went to the credit union.
		I deposited my paycheck, then cash to pay the utility board and a roll of quarters to eventually do laundry again with.
		Next, I headed to the utility board&apos;s office, where I paid my bill.
		The bill was two cents short of an even dollar amount.
		The utility board kept the change and applied it as credit to my account.
		Coins are a pain anyway, and it&apos;s not like I won&apos;t be spending those two cents there next month.
		I went back to my place to grab my laptop, then finally headed back to my mother&apos;s place to rest and get some coursework done before we were to head back to my place to do my mother&apos;s laundry.
	</p>
	<p>
		I arrived at my mother&apos;s place right as my mother and Vanessa were getting home.
		Joy.
		No time to rest then.
		However, things didn&apos;t go as expected.
		My mother was too tired to go do laundry.
		Once more, I offered to take care of the laundry myself.
		My mother said that it was a lot of work though, and that they didn&apos;t want to dump it on me.
		I explained that I&apos;ve got to be there anyway to let them into the laundry room, so I&apos;m stuck there doing laundry whether they&apos;re there or not.
		There&apos;s no point in our both being stuck there.
		This time, they accepted my offer.
		I really wish that they&apos;d accepted it before though.
		It wouldn&apos;t really be any extra effort to do their laundry after mine, and I&apos;d even be able to get some of their laundry in while mine was still going.
		Now though, I&apos;ll have to make a special trip just to do their laundry.
	</p>
	<p>
		I was talking with Vanessa, and apparently my mother&apos;s been saying things behind my back again.
		This time, they think that I haven&apos;t given them a key to my apartment because of some weird idea that they think that I have.
		However, they never asked me for a key.
		Apparently, they think that I should have just handed one over without their even having had the courtesy of asking.
		It&apos;s like they think that they have some <strong>*right*</strong> to a key to my apartment or something, an apartment that they&apos;re not even helping me pay for.
		In all honesty, I would have given them a key if they&apos;d asked for it.
		In fact, I still will if they do, though they&apos;ll have to wait long enough to get the key copied.
		I&apos;ve been far too busy to even make the backup copies that I want for myself, let alone make a copy for them.
		I&apos;ll even move copying the key up higher on the priority list if they ask for one, potentially getting it to them the next day.
		However, until they can be straight with me and actually ask for one, no, they&apos;re not going to magically have one.
	</p>
	<p>
		My mother tipped me off the other day to the fact that taking advantage of Fred Meyer&apos;s weekly gratis gift does not require that one have the proprietary Fred Meyer mobile application installed.
		One simply needs to have a Fred Meyer customer-tracking card and use the Web interface to claim the item.
		Today, I picked up a tracking card so that I can try it next time that they have one of the gifts.
		Of course, I&apos;ll only use the card to claim gifts, never to make actual purchases.
		If I need to do both in one trip, I&apos;ll ask that my purchase be conducted as a separate transaction.
		I went to the website to see what needed to be done to use the Web interface, and found something interesting:
	</p>
	<blockquote cite="https://www.fredmeyer.com./topic/digital-account">
		<p>If you don’t have a card number or it’s no longer available, you can create a virtual card number during the registration process.</p>
		<p>If you would like to create a virtual card number, see below.</p>
	</blockquote>
	<p>
		Okay, that would be cool not to waste plastic on a physical card.
		Below, it said:
	</p>
	<blockquote cite="https://www.fredmeyer.com./topic/digital-account">
		<p>
			<strong>How to create a virtual card number?</strong>
		</p>
		<p>
			If you don’t have a card number or it’s no longer available, you can create a virtual card number during the registration process.
		</p>
		<p>
			After you have entered your email address, password, email and selected ‘Create Account’, you will be taken to an ‘Add your card number to your account’ pageIf you don’t have a Rewards® Card you will need to create a virtual card number.
		</p>
		<ul>
			<li>
				Select ‘Get a virtual card number today’.
			</li>
			<li>
				Enter your personal details.
			</li>
			<li>
				Enter an Alternate ID
			</li>
		</ul>
		<p>
			(Typically our customers use their mobile phone number, but any 10 digit number may be used, as long as it is not already in use)
		</p>
		<ul>
			<li>
				Select ‘Save’.
			</li>
		</ul>
		<p>The Alternate ID that you entered is what you’ll use as your virtual card number.</p>
	</blockquote>
	<p>
		They don&apos;t require that the alternate $a[ID] be a telephone number!
		I&apos;ve seen that alternate $a[ID] system, but I always thought that that was always telephone numbers being used.
		Furthermore, the registration form (the paper one, not the online one) asks for a telephone number, but not an alternate $a[ID].
		At that point, the telephone number becomes the alternate $a[ID].
		The above states that customers typically use their mobile telephone number as their alternate $a[ID], but that&apos;s because Fred Meyer doesn&apos;t typically inform them that they have any choice in that matter!
		Furthermore, the checkers will often ask for your telephone number, but never your alternate $a[ID].
		Either they also think that the only alternate $a[ID] option is one&apos;s telephone number, or they&apos;re pushing for use of telephone numbers as alternate $a[ID]s, whether that&apos;s their intention or not.
		In fact, the only reason that I even recognize the phrase &quot;alternate $a[ID]&quot; is because the self-checkout machines ask for it by that name.
		Until probably about two years ago, I used the self-checkout machines instead of talking to the actual human checkers.
	</p>
	<p>
		I can&apos;t figure out how to get the stupid registration page to work though.
		It&apos;s one of those dumb JavaScript-based forms, where only a basic $a[HTTP] POST form would be better.
		I tried several things to try to debug the form, but I couldn&apos;t figure it out.
		I&apos;ve written to Fred Meyer customer support about the issue, asking how to get the registration form to work.
	</p>
	<p>
		My <a href="/a/canary.txt">canary</a> still sings the tune of freedom and transparency.
	</p>
</section>
END
);
